


Three Years

by GeneratorCat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-08 15:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneratorCat/pseuds/GeneratorCat
Summary: In which Stiles and Derek separately heal from their traumas and learn how to be real, whole people. But that part’s not actually stated here.Here they just meet again.





	Three Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinnamon_skull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/gifts).



> Happy birthday Kay, my love, my dearest <3

Derek almost doesn’t sense him. Almost. But even through the burn of menthol he knows the scent underneath. Even though he hasn’t smelled it in three years he _knows_ , takes in a breath before can catch himself and it’s something like instinct that has him holding it in his nose, his lungs, his cells.

“Stiles.”

The word falls from his tongue like an anchor; in an instant he’s rooted, calm. Stuck. Home.

And that’s stupid because he’s already home. He’s standing in his own yard. In front of the house that he grew up in. But suddenly he feels the warmth and rightness of _home_ more than he has in years. It’s what he thought he could get back when he rebuilt his family’s house, the feeling that has been just out of reach.

And now it’s here.

His fingers tighten around nothing.

When Derek turns around there’s a man leaning against a truck, and memories start rolling in, a sharp contrast to what he’s currently seeing. He thinks about an awkward, lanky boy leaning against a blue Jeep, grinning and hurting and talking and planning and crying and suffering and laughing over it all, shoving all the pain aside because that’s what he thought people needed from him. Derek remembers sad eyes, _angry_ eyes. An erratic heartbeat and the cutting scent of fear.

“Derek,” the man answers with a small nod. He flicks the butt of his cigarette with his thumbnail and the ash scatters along the worn driveway, mixing in with the dirt and crunchy, orange leaves there. His voice is the same. It’s only been three years, after all.

“You’re back.”

Stiles isn’t the same.

It’s been three whole years, after all.

“You sure catch on quick.”

(So maybe not _everything_ is different.)

Derek looks, and. Well. Can barely pinpoint what’s changed, actually. Stiles hasn’t grown more than a centimeter, maybe. Gained, at the most, five pounds. His hair is short and his freckles are in the same places and he has that little scar on the back of his left hand. It’s all the same, and yet.

Yet if not for the smell of him and the sound of him-

Or. No.

That’s it, Derek realises. He smelled Stiles before he heard him.

Stiles from before was fidgety and always in motion, always making noise. Derek always knew when he was around because he could hear him coming and going and existing in the background like white noise. Something Derek hadn’t realised was comforting until it was gone.

But it’s not back now. The only sounds coming from Stiles now are the soft, even beating of his heart (that’s new, that’s different; it’s supposed to be… not _frantic_ , but. Not- not something) and the deep sigh of his lungs as he inhales, the crackle of burning paper and tobacco.

Stiles isn’t tapping his fingers or bouncing his foot. Isn’t scratching at the fabric of his jeans or ruffling his hair or doing a thousand other things that were the soundtrack Derek had labelled _Stiles_ in the back of his brain.

(Settled, that’s the word. It’s not supposed to be settled.)

Settled. Stiles is settled. (Rooted, calm. Stuck. Home.)

“Why?” Derek asks and, because there’s only one thing he can think of that would finally bring Stiles back to Beacon Hills, adds, “Is the sheriff okay?”

“Dad’s fine,” Stiles answers through a cloud of smoke.

 _When the hell did you start smoking_ , Derek wants to ask. But he’s not Stiles’ parent or. Or alpha. He’s not anything, anymore.

“When the hell did you start smoking,” Derek asks. He’s still Derek even if Stiles isn’t Stiles anymore.

Stiles’ lips curve up on one side in a grin that’s something close to satisfied, like he’d had a bet with himself about how long it would take for Derek to mention it, and won. He drops the cigarette and grinds it into the gravel with the heel of his shoe. “Gave in to peer pressure about two weeks into freshman year.”

“I thought you were better than that,” Derek jokes. Except it’s not really a joke because he really did think Stiles was better than that and besides, it’s not very funny.

Stiles laughs anyway, a short huff. “You thought a lot of things about me.”

“Was I ever wrong?”

He was. He knows he was. At least at the beginning. No, at the end, too. He’d thought he’d had Stiles figured out and then the kid just up and left.

Derek never thought Stiles would leave, even though part of Derek wished he would. That he would get away from everything that kept hurting him (including Derek). The other part wished he’d stay forever.

Stiles raises an eyebrow. “More often than not.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees softly. He knows that now.

Stiles stands there, a silence between them. Chill October air picking up dead grass and leaves and sending them rustling across the yard. He lets it hang, and it seems like it’s an easy thing for him to do. He’s comfortable. He’s solid. He’s sure.

Certain. Stiles is certain.

Certain about what, Derek wonders.

Certain about himself, he decides.

He recognises that surety; it’s the same kind he’s learned to have in himself.

It sits beautifully on Stiles.

He turns toward the house. “Come inside.”

He hears the crunch of footsteps behind him, following up the walkway. Up the stairs. Across the porch and through the front door, and then Stiles is in his house and Stiles has been in his house before, but not _this_ house, not since it’s been rebuilt from a burned shell of memories.

The door shuts. Stiles lets out low whistle and then, “Looking good.”

Derek throws a smirk over his shoulder as he continues on into the kitchen. “Me or the house?”

There’s a moment, surprise and confusion freezing Stiles’ face, and then he smiles. “Dude, when did you get a sense of humor?”

“It came with the house.”

“Ha! One after another, boy’s on a roll.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Derek points out, opening the fridge and grabbing a can of soda. He moves to toss it across the island and then remembers, thinks better of it, and steps around to hand it to Stiles.

“Thanks,” he says over the hiss of his coke snapping open, “and I was talking about the house, but I’m willing to extend the sentiment to you too.”

“What a charmer.”

“I’ve sure missed that eyebrow.”

Derek waggles his eyebrows excessively, and Stiles laughs into his can.

Stiles laughs in Derek’s kitchen. He laughs, filling the room with his sound, filling the room with his scent and leaving little traces of himself on the counter tops and across the floor and it’s good. Derek rarely lets people into his home because he hates when they leave themselves all over it, but this. This he loves. The only people allowed here are pack, and Stiles will always be pack to Derek.

“You...” Stiles says, and Derek follows his line of sight to the kitchen table, on which sits his seasonal centerpiece. “You have a pumpkin.”

“Yeah.”

“You have a _jack-o-lantern_.”

“Halloween’s coming up.”

Stiles look back to Derek, and he seems a little less sure than he did outside. He’s still calm and settled (anchor, home) but now there’s a question in those eyes. It’s not like when he used to have questions and would drive himself to the cliff’s edge, desperate to find an answer, a solution, a save. It’s something he wants to know but will be patient to learn.

What he wants to learn is Derek.

Derek wants to learn Stiles, too.

“It’s been three years,” Derek offers, and it explains nothing but everything, and Stiles gets it. He nods.

“A lot can change in three years.”

“Just enough.”


End file.
